May 31st

It would be wrong of me not to give this one her birthday spotlight. She, at least, had the good sense to wait until after my exam to turn 12.

Way back in December, when we went to view The Ugly Chicken that very first time, Emma and I stood shivering on the veranda, trying to picture the view lush and green, and conjuring this fantasy of having her birthday party there on the island.  A whole weekend long celebration with fishing, swimming, grilling, and hair-braiding. (Because, for some reason, that's what 12 year old girls do when they gather in groups of four or more. It's what my friends and I did when we were 12, and it's still what my daughter and her friends do. Braid hair. All weekend long).

And behold!  It came to pass.

Dinner Friday night.
.  Only two of the girls' hair is yet braided.
.  If dinner had been but an hour later, the rest would have been similarly coiffed.

Alas, it came to pass that a cold north wind fell from the arctic in the days leading up to Em's birthday, thus polluting the gentle summer idyll of our celebration.  I feared the swimming might have to be called off.

But no.  These are, after all, fully pubescent Viking women we're talking about here.  At least a few of these hearty souls would not be daunted by cold waters and even colder air. 

The sea must needs be swam!

However.

We're going to stand around and look at it for a gooood long time before we do that.



I stood on the shore documenting the moment dressed in a thick fleece, jeans, and woolly socks.

I wished I had had a hat.

More than once I thought, "Christ, their mother's would flog me if they knew I had let their babies go swimming in this weather!"

More than once I thought, "Meh, my baby does it all the time, and look how awesome she is!"

Emma,

I know you prefer for people to see you as the polar opposit of your sister,
that you purposefully align yourself--your behavior, your opinions
--your whole being--
in order to maintain that image.

But, can I tell you a little secret?
It's not working very well.

You are exactly as vibrant, as beguiling, and as joyful as she is.
You are both cut from the same rosy cloth,
and everyone knows it.

Yes, there are differences.
You are brook where she is river.
You are warmth where she is fire.
You are waltz where she is raucus barn dance.

All of the positive, nurturing energy in my life
flows from you two
(and your brother, of course, but he's all snips and snails and puppy dog tails,
another kettle of fish entirely).
My boy fuels my imagination,
but my girls
--especially you, my beamish beauty--
water my roots, and keep me grounded.

You are growing into such a beautiful, accomplished, interesting young woman.

I am completely proud,
and would be utterly lost without you.

Happy Birthday
Thank you for sharing this first bit with me.

Love,
Mom

May 28th

You will now indulge me in a bit of back tracking here, as a good deal happened in May while I was swamped with exams and house guests--far too busy to blog about it all.

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My Little Miss turned 8 while I was studying for a linear algebra exam.  I had to send her and the family (Grandma Gae and Grandpa Dale included) to the cabin without me so that I could get in a few days of solid, solitary cramming without any distractions, but I did manage to get there in time to spend her very day of days with her.

She's at that age where she's proud to be able to read the printed part of the card,
 but doesn't have a clue what the cursive hand-written bit says.
 I remember that from my own childhood,
 "Blah blah blah, love pride happyhappy.  Now gimme the damn present!"

She's a difficult one to shop for.
.  When you ask her what she wants for her birthday or Christmas, she invariably answers,
 "I don't know. Surprise me."
 The only specific wish I could get out of her this year was
 "one of those uppy-downy stair thingys".

Maybe she's right. 
Maybe there really is no point in brushing her hair
 EVER
when she wears this unkempt, bedhead thing so well.

Amanda,

The past eight years has taught me this about you:

you're impertinent, stubborn, and often exasperating;

sassy, precocious, and always incorrigible.

(one needs such big words to describe your very big, BIG personality)

But you are also one of the happiest, most joyful, loving children I've ever met.

I love you, baby. 

Never change. 

 EVER.

On Crocs And Shifting Paradigms

When I bought the Crocs last week, I said to myself, "OMG, srsly?  Are we really thinking about buying these fool things? Fer realz?  Like, to wear?"

"Well, yeah, actually.  We really are.  Sure they're goofy as shit to look at, but they're perfect to throw on to wear from cabin to beach and back again.  Much better than thongs or those horridly impractical rock shoe thingys that are impossible to get on once wet.  Really.  This is what Crocs are made for.  Totally legit.  We're doing it."

"But, Crocs?  We swore we'd never..."

"Yeah, yeah.  We also swore we'd never eat moldy cheese or use the TV as a babysitter.  We got over those things.  We'll get over this."

"But 299 kroner?  For plastic...."

"It's fine.  Not so bad, really.  Just at the cabin.  Just for the beach. Ugly shoes for The Ugly Chicken.  How fitting."

"Fine. But not that god awful purple.  Ack, no!  Not the red either.  White?  Are we mad?  No!"

"Work with us, here. Pale pink or black.  Decide."

"................pink, the pink ones, then.......Fuck............"

It's hard to say exactly how they ended up on my feet the following day.  The floor was cold? I needed to run up to the garage for something and couldn't find my shoes?  Was I simply showing them to EM?  Mocking them even as I pulled the tags off and slipped them on?  Who knows.  But somehow there they were--on, not off.  Home--not at the cabin.  And there they still were at bed time.

By noon the next day I had to admit to myself, "Damn but these pale pink Crocs are comfortable!  No wonder so many people have been willing to look so stupid all these years! So light and airy, and yet so cushiony and supportive.  Why it's like walking on Jell-o.  If we'd only known...."

"Now, now.  Let's not get carried away.  Around the house and up to the mail box is one thing, but we'll never wear them out in public.  Never.  For that sin, there remains no excuse.  Stupid is as stupid does, and we, JEDA, are not stupid, are we?"

"No.  Of course not.  Never in public.  Obviously."

And I meant it at the time.  I still do!  But I had to work with myself this afternoon, remind myself several times actually, that the parent meeting for the kids' track and field team does, in fact, constitute a public gathering, and no, it really wouldn't be okay to just pop in in a junky old sweatshirt and the pale pink Crocs.

JEDA's standards are slipping. 

Rapid erosion.

 So sad.

My favorite place to buy clothes these days is the sports shop. 

We're not talking nothing but sweats and sports bras here, but...I'm in Crocs now, so it's not far off....

Mad Props To Norwegian Bureaucracy

Have I ever complained about the song and dance an expat has to do to get a passport renewed while living abroad?

It's pretty much absurd.  The pictures, the paper work, the permission forms that have to be signed in front of a frigging judge, for God's sake!  One year the girls and I had to fly to Oslo for a day because we'd missed the one day that year a consul from the embassy set up in Bergen to notarize all that stupid paperwork.

We've never bothered to get the kids set up with Norwegian passports, a) because we haven't really needed them before, all our travel being directed Stateward, and b) because I flat out refuse to go through all that song and dance in Norwegian, I figure--his country, his language, his kids, his job.

We've known since early last autumn that we'd to be spending a week in Madeira this coming summer.  It's Mister's mother's 70th birthday in July, and her birthday wish was to get her whole family (us, and Mister's two sisters' families) on the same tiny island at the same time.  Fine.  Fun, even.  But travel within Europe requires European passports for European citizens--even the 50/50 models.

I reminded him when the trip was planned and agreed to, "It's your job to get the kids' passports.  Don't leave it to the last minute."

"Yeah yeah, fine. No problem."

Every month since September, I've said, "You need to get the kids' passports."

And he'd say,  "Yeah, yeah. Soon.  Next week maybe.  Can you do some research for me?  Find out what's required?"

"NO!"

And here it is--April.  Plane tickets should have been ordered at least a month ago, but we can't order them because the kids still don't have Norwegian passports.

GRRRRRR!  FINE!  Here!  Just let me do EVERYTHING!

I thought for a long time that there was a good chance that they wouldn't even let me apply for the passports, me being a scary foreigner and all.  I dropped into the passport office at the police station one grey day in March to ask that very question. The guy looked at me like I was more than a little bit soft in the head.  "I don't understand," he said, "You're not the children's mother?"

"No, I am.  But I'm not Norwegian."

"Then why would we give them Norwegian passports."

"Their father is Norwegian.  But he's too busy.  I need to bring them in to get the passports.  Can I do that?"

"You're the mother of the children?"

"Yes.  But I'm not Norwegian."

To which he lifted an eyebrow and snorted as if to say, "Ya think?"  Then he gave me a form for Mister to fill out, giving me permission to apply for passports for his kids.  The Americans have a similar form, but it comes with a whole bunch of strings attached, so I asked, "And does this form need to be notarized?"

"It needs to be signed, yes."

"But does it need to be notarized?  Like...(my norwegian words were failing me here)...you know...official like?"

"Just sign it.  And bring his passport when you come."

"And the other forms?  Can you give me those too?"

"What other forms?

"For the passports.  The application forms."

"This," he held up the permission form, "And the kids.  You bring.  We take care of rest."

So maybe he didn't say it exaclty like that.  But he was clearly getting frustrated with the fact that I was so desperately working to complicate a really very simple process.

Blah, blah, blah.  Life, school, crap.  I finally managed to get the kids into the police station just this past Wednesday.  They looked everything up on a central computer--my status, kids' status, addresses, fødselsnummer (basically a Social Security number)--everything.  They took pictures right there.  We were in and out in less than 15 minutes. When I asked how long it would take to process the actual passports, she told me, "We guarantee them within 10 days." 

This shocked me, "That's it?  Seriously?"

To which she gave me a level, I shit-you-not kind of look over her bifocals, and said, "It'll probably be much early than that."

I snorted and said, "Dude, could you call the Americans and tell them how you do this?"

She must have thought I was pretty damn funny, and put a rush on my order, because I'll be damned if the very next day, Thursday, the passports were......

_____________________________________________________________________

UPDATE---FRIDAY

I might have to take some of my mad praizzz back.  See I wrote all that yesterday, after I'd recieved TWO of the passports in the mail a mere one day after applying for them.  I thought that was pretty freaking impressive.

But....why just two?

I assumed that the third one must have come up on the pile just in time for someone's coffee break, so I'd get it the following day--yesterday.

Only, I didn't.

I still only have two passports.  Which means, I still can't order plane tickets.

I'm kind of suspecting this little hiccup has more to do with the post office.  But who knows.  I'm probably going to have to make a phone call Monday.

Anyway--I spent a lot of time on this post, so I'm posting it. 

Happy Weekend!

Klar--Ferdig--GÅ!

One of my more bitter memories of elementary school is the Presidential Fitness Test that we were forced to perform every Spring.  The shuttle run, the standing long jump, the flexed arm hang, the god damn 800 meter dash. 

I sucked--I mean really, really sucked--at all of it. 

And sometime during that fitness week we'd be weighed and measured right out there in front of God and everyone. Empirically proving, year after year, that I actually was the galumphingest elephant in the whole class.  This is how it seemed to me anyway.  I mean, how else was I supposed to interpret slim and perfect Jennifer Murray being able to hang from that stupid bar for upwards of 40 seconds, while I could barely manage 3?  And the 800 meter dash!  Gah!  That's what--barely even half a mile?  I don't remember specific times, but I do remember the abject humiliation of being one of the last ones to drag myself wheezing and hacking over that finish line year after year after year.  By the 6th grade, I was refusing to even try.  I just walked the whole 800 meters, because FUCK YOU Presidential Fitness Test!  You don't own me!  When you say run, I don't say, "How fast?"

I hated it.  Loathed it entirely.

I can look back on it now--on what I was, how I was--and see quite clearly that I wasn't anywhere near as fat and awful as I thought I was.  I was big, yes. Bigger than all my friends. But that was genetics, not fat.  There were kids in the class who struggled more than I did--a few anyway.  I would love to be able to go back in time, and let myself off the hook just a little bit for all that.  Of course, I can't do that.  So I've resolved instead to do everything in my power to make sure my kids (specifically Emma, who--it's been clear since she was an infant--is shaped exactly like me) make it through their childhoods without ever once feeling the same shame and inadequacy over their general fitness and appearance that I once did.

I married into a family of runners.  Serious, medal winning, title holding athletes who have all been sweetly indulgent of my galumphing, elephantine thighs.  I've felt, nevertheless, a certian amount of pressure to up my fitness game in order to be worthy of their exalted, sweaty presense. 

When I first started running as an adult--about 13 years ago--I remember my wildly hammering heart having serious difficulty after only 100 meters.  I'm pretty sure I cried the first time I ran from one bus stop to the next (about 500 meters) without stopping.  It wasn't until after Amanda was born that I got consistent enough with my workouts, that I was able to run any real distances.  My first full kilometer, my first 5, my first 10...these were huge milestones for me, and I remember the season, the weather, and the pride that accompanied each and every one of them.  But let me tell you, all that pride is nothing compared to what I felt this past Monday when Emma completed her first full 3 kilometer race.

Both Emma and Daniel have been going to track and field training every Monday evening for two years now.  Daniel is a natural.  He's got the body.  You know the one.  That lean, sculpted, athletic body built to skip and prance lightly through any physical activity you point it at.  That's his genetics, the lucky little bastard.  Emma and I just have to deal with that.  Emma goes primarily to ensure that she gets in one good workout, once a week.  No one asks her to compete, because the thought of it makes her sick to her stomach.  But she's been saying for the past 4 or 5 months now that she can tell she's getting better.  Her coaches are complimenting her on her running style.  She feels lighter.  She can keep up at a sprint with some of the faster boys in the class now.  She's obviously pretty pleased with herself about all this.  So when the prospect of this løpskarusell* came up, she was open to it, as long as I would run it with her.  I happily agreed.

I told her at the start that our time on this one didn't matter at all.  The most important things were to a) finish, and b) run as much of it as we possibly could.  She was nervous, but she agreed to those terms.

Found picture here.

We managed to get in the way of the photographer right at the start of the race.  That's me in the middle--green jacket, goofy hat, #40.  Daniel is to the far right--#42.  He started behind us, but less than a minute after the gun went off, he was ahead of us and out of sight.  Emma, unfortunately, is behind the pink headband.  But this picture is proof that she was there, that she did do this thing.

As we approached the 1.5 km mark where we were supposed to turn around and head back, she huffed, "When we, get up there, can we just, walk?  Just for a, little bit?"  I looked over at her.  Her cheeks were flushed, there was the slightest sheen of persperation on her upper lip.  She was breathing heavily, but not hard.  Utterly beautiful.  I could tell she didn't really need to stop, so I said, "We'll do what you want, but you seem fine to me.  Let's just see what you've got left in you when we get there."

I deliberately didn't stop or even slow down when we got to the turning point.  She looked at me expectantly, ready for her little walking break.  Instead I said, "Think about this, Em.  Tonight, when we get home, you get to send a message to daddy telling him what you've done.  But you only get to say you ran the whole way, if you ran the whole way."

"But, I've never, run, this far, before."

"Doesn't mean you can't do it.  You're fine Emma.  I can tell.  You're not breathing hard enough to need to quit.  Let's just slow it down a bit."

So we did.  But only for a minute.  There was one other moment just before the 2.5 marker where she really wanted to quit, but all I had to say was, "Em, just imagine how proud Daddy is going to be to hear you ran the whole way!"  To which she dug deep, and kept right on running.  All the way to the finish line.

Daniel was there waiting for us, all bouncey and excited as ever Boy is.  He was 4 minutes ahead of us, and of course I'm proud of him too.  But as I said before, he was born to this kind of thing.  If he ever decided to dig as deep as Emma had just done, he'd be in danger of maybe winning something someday.  In my mind, this was Emma's moment.  I hope she remembers it in years to come with as much pride as I will. 

Your first full 3 kilometers, Em.  It was Spring.  It was cloudy and drizzly.  And your mother wept with joy at the sight of it.  I love you.


*løpskarusell--I'm not sure what's up with this word.  Løp means run.  Karusell means carousel.  I think maybe it's a løpskarusell because it's a cycle of 3 races?...or something? The next one is on May 7th.  And you can bet your ass Emma and I will be there for it.

Bawdry

Boy climbs into the backseat of the car humming loudly.  He's a fairly hyped up because he's just been to soccer practice, and apparently there was head butting involved.  But wait.  Allow me to correct the unintended tameness of that first sentence.  Boy doesn't so much "climb" into the backseat, as he does "mount" it. Maniacally.  Yes, that's more like it.  The humming too, boarders on maniacal.

None of this is unusual for Boy these days, so I coolly push my sunglasses into place and drive on.

When we turn out of the school parking lot onto the main road, the maniacal humming turns to maniacal singing.  Mind you, he still hasn't said a single word to me beyond a chirpy "Yyyessss!" when I ask if he's remembered his hat and jacket. 

His song goes something like this:

Bosom, bosom, bosom, bosom.
BOZEM!
Bosom, bosom, bosom, bosom.
BOZEM!
Smack your BOZEM!
Bosombosom.
Smack your BOZEM!
Bosombosom.
Bosom, bosom, bosom, bosom....

And so on and so forth, until I finally have to ask, "Boy?  Why are you singing bosom, bosom, bosom over and over again like that?"

He stops mid-bosom and thinks a second before he says, "I don't know.  I just think bosom is a fun word to say.  Listen! Bosom, bosom, bosom..."

I let him sing his song again.  It's growing on me.  Bosom is a great little word, afterall.  But after the second round of "Smack your BOZEM!" I begin to wonder.

"Boy?  Do you have any idea what the word 'bosom' means?"

"Oh.  Um.  Well....I think it might have something to do with friends? or something?"

"Yes, it can mean something like that.  Something close.  Something comfortable.  A bosom-buddy. Or the warm bosom of family.  But it has another meaning that you should probably be aware of."

"Oh."

"It also means, you know....boobies."

Boy begins to giggle--maniacally--and in so giggling, very nearly swallows his tongue.

"No!  Wait!" he snorts, "You mean!  I've been saying...!  And smack your...!  Nooooo!"

We're nearing home by now.  Gradually the fit of giggles wears itself out.  I'm backing the car into the garage when he asks, "So, you didn't say.  Am I allowed to say it?"

"Say bosom?  Ummmm.  Tja, yeah?  I guess so?  Maybe?  If you really want?"

That is right, isn't it?  I mean--bosom.  It's not like titties, or knockers, or even boobies.  Right?  Sure enough he'll come across as a pretentious turd if he ever decides to compliment a girl on her ample bosom, or anything dire like that.  But he's allowed to go around singing "Bosom, bosom, bosom, bosom" at the top of his lungs, right?

I'm pretty sure I've totally lost the plot on this whole naughty words/nice words parenting task.  I figure, as long as nobody in this house feels free to tell me to go fuck myself, I've won at least half the battle.  But here in Norway where both TV and radio are completely uncensored, where the likes of Nicki Minaj and Eminem are played blithely in my kids' classrooms during the lunch hour, and the English swear words are considered by most parents to be harmless good fun, it's really hard to draw much more of a line in the sand than that.

It also doesn't help that I've lived here so long that I no longer have a clear sense of what some of these words actually mean.  As an example, this past week the kids have had uteskole (outdoor school).  Rather than the usual classroom routine, everyone heads outside, and each day each class is assigned to a different station designed to get kids moving and enjoying the great outdoors.  One of the stations was canoeing, which we, here in this house, oh so wittily renamed kanoodling.  As in, "Boy!  You're kanoodling today, don't forget the lifevest."  Or, "So Missy, did you enjoy the kanoodling today?"  And even worse, "So EM?  Did you get wet during the kanoodling?"  It was Wednesday afternoon before I dimly remembered that kanoodling might have something to do with sex.

Given all that, who am I to deny my boy the right to sing his joy of bosom?

Her Mother's Math Talent

3 + 3 is 8.

No it's not.

Yes it is.

Missy, 3 + 3 is not 8.  Use your fingers if you have to.  But, no.  It's just.....not.

Well, in math 3 + 3 is 6.  Boring.  But in real life if you  put a 3 and a 3 together, it makes an 8.  So the real 3 + 3 is 8.

It's The View, Stupid!

So, yeah.  It's been awhile since I've done this with any sort of regularity.  Quite a bit has happened.

We've touched briefly on the university thing.  I finished the damn problem set, by the way.  There was much grumbling and moaning, and once again Mister had to fish me out of one or two tricksy Algebra muddles.  But it's done. Now I get to start studying for exams.  Yey me!  Wanna know the worst thing about Norwegian university?  Five hour exams.  Five frigging hours of hell.  I don't think it's right, but that's not what I'm here to talk about today.

Today I want to talk about the best thing that's happened to us recently.  Our cabin! 

Best. Purchase. EVER!

A cabin is not something that I had ever aspired to own.  I've visitied several. I've had reasonably good times in all of them. But for the most part, it always felt like far more of a hassle to pack up and get there than it was worth.  Then Mister started pining for one, and I was like, "Shit!  How am I going to stop him from doing this?"  I seriously didn't want to have to fight with him every weekend about whether or not we were going to pack all our crap--AGAIN--and go to the cabin--AGAIN.  Because I knew that's the kind of cabin experience he had in mind.  It's the weekend!  Take me to the sea!  Take me to the mountains!  That's just the kind of guy he is.

He arranged to view our soon-to-be cabin between Christmas and New Year's.  I tagged along.  Reluctantly.  All prepared to start poking holes in his little pipe dream the minute we climbed ashore.  FYI--it's on an island, only accessible by boat--1st easy strike against it, right there! 

Only, once we got there, I couldn't seem to stop myself from saying, "Oh my God!  Look at the view!  The view, kids!  Look at it!  It's....It's....Stunning! Majestic! Magnificent! It's GOOORGEOUS!" 

When I was 14, I had a poster of Norway in my room.  This wasn't it, but it looked something like this:

by Michele Molinari taken off of AllPosters.com

I adored everything about the idea of Norway when I was 14 and 15 (coughA-hacoughcough), and I wanted to go there more then just about anything.  I naturally assumed that everywhere in Norway must be exactly as breathtakingly beautiful as the place in that poster. 

Turns out, I wasn't too far wrong, and now I own a piece of it. 

These pictures were taken with my iphone, and they don't capture even a quarter of the grandure that managed to change my mind about buying that cabin in about half an instant.  But they're all I've got, so here ya' go:

Towards the southeast.

That tree and those bushes are scheduled for demolition pronto.

Not as majestic here, but this is looking towards the northwest.  We've got ocean views everywhere we look.
It's pretty much awesome.

I was a bit shocked this morning when I sat down to write this, to discover that I don't have any pictures of the cabin itself.  Doi!  Nevermind.  It's practically new.  Tastefully furnished (for the most part).  And covered floor to ceiling in pine paneling (as every Norwegian cabin ever is).  It's lovely really, but God people!  The view!  The view is what sells it!  Well, the view, and loads and loads of fresh seafood.

We spent all of vinterferie there, and all of Easter, plus a weekend or two in between.  The neighbors are delightful, and have four kids more or less the same ages as ours.  They all get along great which makes the kids want to pack up and go as often and as eagerly as we do.

All of this shocks the hell out of me.  Because, seriously, I'm not a cabin person. 

Well, that is--I never was before.

One last bit of eye candy--a terrible shot into the sun of the girls playing with crabs.  Made moderately interesting by Picasa photo editing dodads.

Imagine Me Wispering This. REALLY! LOUDLY!

I have a confession to make.

I'm about ready to quit school.

Quit, as in:

Walk away.

Cease and desist.

Run. thefuck. away.

I have a problem set for my Linear Algebra class due this Friday.  I have to get at least 60% on it to be allowed to sit the exam in May.  You have no idea how tempting it is to just blow the whole damn thing off.  Wash my hair, put on some make-up, and go shopping instead.

I'm all mathed out, folks.  Done.

I was talking to a woman this past weekend, an aquaintance of Mister's from the village he grew up in.  She was asking me what I was studying, how it was going, and such n' all.  I explained that, for the moment I'm in the meteorology program, but I've just finished applying to switch over to the geology department.  She chuckled heartily at this, and said, "Ah! Not autistic enough to get through meteorology's math requirements, are you?" 

Now, I can think of half a dozen ways to be righteously offended by such a casual dismissal of my current academic predicament if I chose to be, but the plain fact of the matter is, she's right.  And funny to boot. So, yeah, I concede.  I'm not autistic enough to get through the math.  I is stooppud.

The reason I'm attempting to switch over to geology is, even if I take the geophysics degree, there are only two required math classes there (neither of them Calculus II), as opposed to the six that meteorology demands.  Geology is what I wanted to do in the first place, but it's a very competetive program to get into in Norway because all the eager young pups coming out of the high schools looking for the quickest route to loads of spare cash know that the oil industry is nothing but booming, and a degree in petroleum geology is their surest ticket to the party.  Meteorology was relatively easy to get into, and global climate change is something I'm genuinely interested in. But this particular program puts all its emphasis on weather tracking, forecasting, and modelling.  Hence the unholy fuck ton of math requirements.  I want out.  I'm trying to get out. 

But. I mean. Like. Seriously? Secretly?  Even if I do manage to get into the geology program?  I don't really want to.  This is my truth.  My truth that my Mister is not yet ready to hear: I want to quit.

Poor, Poor JEDA

This is the current long term forecast for Bergen.

I'm still so traumatized from the horrors of two winters past, that all I can think when I see a week of fine weather like that is, "Fuck. When do I have to start conserving water?" I feel like an ungrateful, privileged, 1st-world harpy when I think such things.  But I can't seem to help myself.

I remember saying to Mister during those awful waterless months, "Never again.  Never.  You will fix this well situation.  You will find us a secure source of water. You will do this before you do anything else.  Fixing the shallow well has just become number one on your to-do list!  Are we clear on that?"

And we were.  Two years ago, we were definitely in agreement on that one, crucial point.

Since then Mister has overseen and completed the following purchases/home repairs:

• a boat
• a paved driveway
• an upstairs bathroom
• a lovely, and I dare say, enviable sea-side cottage
• another damn boat--to ferry us to and from said sea-side cottage, naturally

These things are huge.  And wonderful.  They are testimony to a watershed shift in our lifestyle that places me squarely amongst the ranks of other ungrateful, privileged, 1st-world harpies who fan their newly manicured nails whilest bemoaning the scarcity of well tailored jeans, poor us.  And I did technically approve each and every one them, so I've no business whining about it now.  But, god dammit!  I'm going to run out of water again, and I don't want to!

Retrospective

This blog is clearly defunct.  It's served its purpose, and I've neither the time nor the inclination to continue mommy blogging.  Silly to keep pretending otherwise.

But, as I've already mentioned, my favorite aspect of the entire blogging phenomenon is the journaling.  The writing down, and storing away of moments that would otherwise have been forgotten.

I've had this notion for a while now that I should maybe take and broaden that idea.  Go back--way back--and write about memories of my own childhood.  But also pick up moments that I skipped over of the kids' earliest years.  I don't think any of it should be forgotten completely.  And I think this is a great medium in which to capture it all.

I can't decide though if I should start it as a completely new blog, or just add on to this one.

In the meantime, here's a little taste of what I'm talking about.  A moment, one slow summer day just four years ago.  Please to note the dejected slump of his shoulders as Mario plunges into the abyss for the last time.

Technically, this doesn't pre-date the blog, so it doesn't really qualify for my new grand scheme.  But I just found it, and after watching it a dozen-odd times in a row, I felt strongly that I needed to pass it on.  Plus, look how cute Emma is with her sassy short haircut and Brazt t-shirt.  I know she won't want to forget that in years to come! 

Things Done and Things As Yet Undone

Done:  Annual Weekend o'Birthdays

• Epic fail on the girls' birthdays this year.  For those who don't know, my girls have their birthdays within three days of each other late in May.  My calculus final was scheduled for the day of EM's birthday. There was no possible way I could manage two parties, and a respectable grade on my exam, so--sadly, selfishly, cravenly--I told them they had to wait on their parties.  I bought presents though.  Large piles of presents I did definitely manage.

Done: Elder Miss's Make-Up Party

• EM's actual birthday was on a weekday, and I had the exam, and I was somewhat, what you might call overwrought on account of said exam, so I didn't ever get a picture of her with her pile of presents.  Fy. But just last weekend, I took her and a small group of her closest friends to see Pirates of the Caribbean 4.  Five of the chattiest, loudest, goofiest 11 year olds EVER.  They talked all the way through the movie, but I didn't shush or scold even once.  Happy Belated Birthday, Baby.

Undone:  Little Miss's Make-Up Party

• It's going to have wait now until August or September.  That's okay.  I'm pretty sure she's forgotten all about it.  My Missy tends to live very much 'in the moment'.  We love that about her.

Done:  Elder Miss's Annual Spring Art Show and Tap Recital

• Someone thought it would be a brilliant idea to schedule an outdoor tap dance recital this year.  Someone apparently forgot that we live in the wettest damn place on Earth, and outdoor events are generally discouraged here in Bergen.  Baby got wet.  Very, very wet.

• Someone else was also thinking outside the box when they scheduled the art show this year, and managed to find a whole new venue for the event.  Instead of an art gallery, the kids got to display their work at the Bergen Fishing Museum.  That's right, the fishing museum!  Along with hundreds of pieces of their children's colorful, clunky imaginations made manifest, parents were treated to the museum's permanent collection of nets, hooks, and, of all things, outboard engines!  Add to that the intriguing aroma of rotting, drying fish marinating in the ancient wooden floors, and you've got yourself a pretty spectacular afternoon of history and culture! 

Eel by EM

Jellyfish by EM

• All snarking aside, I did rather appreciate the aquatic theme of all the art. The kids had obviously been working towards this the whole year.  And it was a much, much bigger building, so there was none of the overcrowding that has been such a problem at the art gallery. 
• Do take a moment to try and conjure that smell though. Think low tide.  Think 300 years of fish guts rotting into the floorboards.  Add salt.

Done: Realfagkompetanse

• High school math and science proficiency.  I didn't do it as a teenager.  I didn't do it as a college student.  But it's done now.  And I did it in Norwegian.  I get to brag about that a little bit, because it was hard.  Damn hard.  But I did it.  And I did it in Norwegian.  Somehow over the past 18 months I've managed to cram 3 full years worth of math and science into my brain.  I've taken biology, chemistry, physics 1 & 2, and calculus 1 & 2.
• The final oral exam in physics was not great.  I went in with the wrong attitude.  I choked.  I missed some things I really shouldn't have missed.  I'm not overly proud of my meager performance that day.  But it was one day. One bad day.  And the important thing is, I may not have aced it, but I passed it.  I'll get credit for the class.  And that's really all I need to get into the University.
• I've applied for a place in the Meteorology/Oceanography departmant starting next fall.  If I don't get in, fuck 'em.  I'm spending the rest of my days on the sofa watching reruns of Extreme Make-over Home Edition, and eating bonbons.

Undone: Stateside Summer Fun

• There's much on the agenda this year, including side trips to Victoria, B.C.; Seattle WA; Yellowstone; and Northapmton MA.
• Boy's going to learn how to swim.  He doesn't want to, but dammit! He will, he will, he will!
• I'm going to eat steak.  And mint chocolate chip ice cream.  And Pop Tarts.
• I'm going to buy stuff.
• Lots of stuff
• It's going to be good.
• Very good
• Bags are half-way packed.  We're almost there.

Long Overdue

So my dilemma is two-fold.  No, three.  My dilemma is three-fold.

First: the audience.  I'm a mommy blogger.  I've understood this, from random snark and other disparaging comments and articles I've read, to be a bad thing.  Apparently there are too many of us, and we all say the same things over and over, and our kids aren't really all that cute, and nobody cares, so how dare we take up band-width? 

Whatever. 

This criticism has nothing to do with my dilemma. My motives in writing this blog over the past five years have been primarily journal keeping, and a convenient way of keeping far-flung family updated and involved in my kids' lives.  I suspect 90% of the other so called mommy bloggers out there have similar motives (the other 10% wishing nothing more than to brag, the uppity bitches). So again I say, whatever. If you don't care, simply move on.

I honestly thought most of you had moved on; a conclusion I came to based on the lack of feedback. 

Please understand, I'm not here to pander for compliments and comments.  I just assumed that "No comment" meant "Meh, enough with all the chattiness.  We'd rather just look at the pictures on Facebook." When you half suspect no one's listening, you have to start to wonder if it's worth all the effort. It's not the only reason I stopped writing, but admittedly, sulkily, it was part of it.

It's been six months since my last post, and in that time, especially this last month or so, I've had several people say to me, "What gives?  I keep checking, but you never post anything new."  I'd be totally lying if I didn't say my ego isn't hugely flattered to discover that there are people out there (who aren't my mother) who enjoy, and miss my writing.  Guess what people!  I enjoy and miss my writing too.  And I'd like to get back to it.

Which leads me to dilemma the Second: the subject matter. My kids (my primary subjects) are growing up. Their personalities, their idiosyncracies, their foibles, all of their daily victories and defeats...Sure it all makes for some pretty great writing, but is it really fair of me to turn everything they say and do into some amusing little anecdote?  It's the one part of the 'mommy blogger' criticism I tend to agree with.  At a certain point, it crosses a line.  I'm just not sure where that line is. 

I like the idea of journaling their childhood, of collecting our family's stories in one place.  I find myself revisiting my own archives often, glad everytime, that I took the time to write it all down.  I'm pretty sure they will be too one day. But at 11, 9 and 7, they're just now moving into the most awkward, socially/physically/psycologically fraught stage of their life.  How mean of me to make a joke of it all.

Now, I know what you're thinking.  So do the writing, do the journaling, just don't post it.  Save it. Treasure it.  And someday your kids will treasure it too.  This is a good and noble idea.  I should totally do that.  But here's the thing, see dilemma the first, I like the audience.  I've always thought straight-up journaling was kind of stupid because what's the point if no one is going to read what you wrote, and let you know that they've heard and understood you?

Apart from the kids, the only other thing I have to talk about is this little project I've got going that I like to call The Complete Re-education of Mother.  Honestly, I'm not sure how much anyone else cares.  Physics and calculus are not nearly as amusing as, say Boy's recent attempts to wield Jedi mind control in order to trick me into buying him more Lego, or Missy's current obsession with HUGE boobs, which  (See, right there? The boob thing is probably over the line, right?  Nobody's business. But seriously, people. She smacks her lips and rubs her hands together like she's about to take a bite out of some rare juicy fruit.  Of course, I'm loath to label any such proclivities as deviant, but, I mean...Ladies, lock your doors before showering...that's all I'm sayin')

Finally, dilemma the Third: time.  I am no casual, spit it out, stream-of-consciousness kind of writer.  Believe me, I wish I were.  It takes time for me to come up with something I'm willing to post, to let other people look at.  And since I started my little re-education project, I have significantly less spare time for the tortured selection of perfect adjectives than I used to.  So even if I do get back to writing about family, about school, about rain, there's going to be significantly less of it than there used to be.

In the meantime--indulge me in a little uppity bragging.  Not about the kids though, about my mighty husband.

The handsome man (alas, someone else's mighty husband) with his finger on that button there is Norway's Prime minister Jens Stoltenberg. The button he's about to push is the button that will start production of a series of gas ferries (see picture hanging in back ground) that will operate in the north of Norway.  Those are my mighty husband's boats.  He designed them anyway.  The other man in the picture is, apparently, Poland's Prime Minister (the boats are being built in Poland).  There.  Two Prime Ministers in attendence.  It's just that. big. a. deal.

Life's A Beach

There was the faintest edge of panic in her voice when she called to me from the sofa where she was sitting with the computer on her lap, doing her online homework assignment.

"Mom?  Mom?  What is this?  Can they say that?"

I knew she was working on English.  I assumed her distress had something to do with one of the scary, irregular verbs both her and her teachers are always stumbling over.  I was elbow deep in dinner preparations, and frankly not in the mood to be very helpful.  I sighed impatiently, "For heaven's sake Emma.  Just sound it out.  One letter at a time.  You'll get to it."

"I can't say that."

"Of course you can.  One letter at a..."

"No.  Mom.  You wouldn't want me to say that word."

"What do you mean?"

"Look!"

So I did.

Now I ask you, what is the point of trying to teach them the difference between 'nice' words and 'naughty' words, when this is the shit they're learning from school?  I know I should be outraged.  And I probably will be just as soon as I can stop giggling about it.

Daniel, as usual, had the final word on the matter, "Well Mom, it makes sense. Sand is kind of annoying..."

It is a bitch, Boy.  Damn right.  It's a bitch!

This turned out to be so much fun, I could almost forgive the repeat of last winter's bitterly cold draught.

Here's how we spent our weekend:

In the 14 years we've lived in this house, the lake has frozen this way--thick and smooth enough for ice skating--only twice. So this was a real treat.  We were skiing all over it last winter, but the deep freeze didn't come until after the snow last year, so it was never fit for skating.

I did a fair amount of skating as a kid. Most of it of the 'roller' variety, but the mechanics are essentially the same.  But there was plenty of ice skating too.  I remember spending many a happy winter afternoon ice skating at the dingy little rink in Murray Park.  The place smelled like damp socks, and the fries they served were always soggy and over salted, but I liked it.  I think I even took some lessons there at one point. But my childhood recall button is notoriously faulty, so I could be wrong.  Still, I swear I remember some sort of skills test, or something...I did well...lady said I was in the wrong class...

Meh, unimportant.  The point is--I liked skating.  It's kind of what I remember doing most during my outside off time.  And I've never quite understood why my girls aren't spending their youth similarly occupied.

It took me some time to trust the ice.  Despite all my youthful skating, I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've done it on a lake like this.  There's a good 20 cm of solid ice out there, but it's a bit creepy to stare down through all the cracks and air bubbles frozen in place.  Plus, it shifts and crackles sometimes as you move over it.  Shudder.  But once I got used to it, and my feet and legs started to remember how to move in skates, I had a grand old time.

So did the kids. 

Not to mention Toblerone.  Whose ass, by the by, I squarely kick in the skating department.

It snowed a little Saturday night, so on Sunday the kids got to make the obligatory snow-angels on the ice.

Untold liters of hot cocoa and marshmallow fluff were sacrificed in the making of this blog post.  The writer is unrepentant.

The Wild Things Are All In His Head, You See

Since the 1st grade Daniel's class has had a sort of mascot.  A cute little stuffed animal they named Geo-Rasken*. Every week a name is drawn out of a box, and the person whose name is drawn gets to take Geo home for the week.  On Friday they bring Geo back to school, along with his tote bag and notebook, in which they're meant to have written a short account of what they got up to during their week together.

Geo was quite popular in the 1st grade.  Nobody could quite hold their cookies until it was their turn to take him home.  Week after week, the first thing I'd hear from Boy when he got home Monday afternoon was, "Not me. Again."  Sigh.

But that was two years ago.  Eventually it was Boy's turn.  And then his turn came again, and yet again.  And three more times in the 2nd grade too.  And it was great. An electric little thrill, everytime. 

When I sent Geo back to school sometime last May, I sort of assumed it was for the last time.  I mean, cute is cute and all, but...going on the 3rd grade now...surely we've played this particular game out.

Imagine my surprise then, when home comes Boy Monday with none other than wee Speedy himself. Looking, I must say, more than a little worse for wear. It was immediately clear from Boy's lackluster, "I got Geo....again...." that I was right in assuming the thrill has begun to wear a little thin. 

What with one thing and another, Geo got set aside that evening, and pretty much ignored for the rest of the week.  Nevertheless, an assignment is an assignment, and just before bedtime last night I told Daniel that he had to write something in Geo's book.  He didn't want to, of course, "There's nothing to write.  We didn't do anything."

"So write that.  Or make something up.  I don't care, as long as you write something."

Thus with a great, put-upon huff, he scratched out the following:



Translation for the Norwegian impared:
Home with Daniel
We did nothing.  It was a boring week.
Next time we'll travel back in time and fight with the Vikings.


Heh.

I love that kid.  I swear to God I do.

*Geo, pronounced gay-o, short for 'gepard' which is the Norwegian word for cheetah. Rasken, from the venerated Norse root meaning 'super-speedy-fast-one'.

Girlie Interlude II

"I sink we should say 'drowning' instead of 'sinking'. And we should use 'guessing' instead of 'sinking'.  That way there won't be any mix-ups."

Tangentally--the punch-line of one of Mister's favorite lame jokes goes something like this:  "Mayday! Mayday! We are sinking!"  Nearby German ship responds, "Yes, vee are sinking of you too!" 

He tells this joke almost daily now as Amanda continues to say "sssss" instead of "thhhhhhh". 

I sink she knows perfectly well how it's upost to be pronounced. She's only persisting to piss him off. 

She's evil that way.

Skull-La-La

The morning after I hung him up, the kids decided he was French and immediately started calling him Skull-La-La.  Boy wondered what he'd like for breakfast.  "We'd offer you toast, but it's not French toast, so you probably wouldn't like it."

We offered an exclusive selection of lemon poison, orange poison, or raspberry poison.  But everyone, by God, had to drink their poison, or be gone with them!  There was only one dimwitted little kid who couldn't quite get with the program, and insisted that he wasn't allowed to drink wine.



He spent the weekend rewatching the movies so he could get Jack's mincing little walk down.  I thought he was pretty good at it, but Boy insisted he could do it better if only I'd give him a little rum.  It's the rum, apparently, that makes badass pirates walk that way.

If you asked Boy what Emma was for Halloween, he said, "I don't know, something black."  If you asked Amanda what Emma was for Halloween, she'd say, "It was kind of like pretty, but the face was all wrong."  If you asked Emma what she was for Halloween she'd say, "I don't know what I was, but I was the best one there!



The princess dress that Alpha Grandma made for her last year was a much better fit this year.  She insisted that she needed a wig because both Daniel and Emma had wigs to go with their constums.  Stupid Disney branded Sleeping Beauty rat's nest cost me more than the other two costumes combined, she only wore it for 10 minutes, and she looked 100 times prettier when she finally took the damn thing off.



Count them if you dare.  There should be 16 of 'em, not including the terrified friend of Amanda's who was cowering in my lap while this picture was taken because she was terrified of all the boys' scary masks.  Seriously, the precious thing was sobbing in terror.  Her mom had to turn right around, and pick her back up.  Part of me feels awful about it, the rest of me is all, "Oh for God's sake!"

Appropriate?  Or inappropriate?  Mister and I held quite a debate over these little guys the night before the party.  The marshmallow ghosts were not working, and I was pretty much ready to punch someone in the face for being fed up with party preparations.  Toby then started hanging Seigemenn from tiny licorice nooses, and I think I fell in love with him all over again right then and there.  I worried, however, that other mothers might not think they were nearly as adorable as I did.

They ended up being a big hit, with the boys especially.  In fact, Mister had to make more, because there was some awful whining about there not being enough for everyone.

No Halloween party is complete without a game or two.  It was Emma who came up with Pin-The-Arm-On-The-Zombie.  Then she offered to draw and color the requisite zombie and severed arm.

I offered to find some pictures of zombies online to give her some ideas.  She was immediately offended.  "Can't I just use my own ideas?  It's much easier that way." 
Clearly she didn't need my help.



Didn't need my help at all.

She's rather wonderful, my Emma.  Is she not?

As a prize for playing the game, which they all played and loved, we mixed 50 Kr. in coins into a pumpkin still full of its guts, and told them they could keep whatever they managed to grab hold of.  The perfect amount of gross-out factor, but most of them still dared to do it.

 

We Regret To Inform You

I don't think anyone believed it would really happen.

"Winter?  Again?  So soon?  But, summer was just...Is there nothing to be done about it?"

No.  'Fraid not.  No deferments.  No appeals.  No special pleading.  Only forbearance.  And it would help if you would all put your winter tires on now, please, thank you.  Which no one did.

Last weekend the pepperkake went on sale.  And last night?  Last night it snowed.  Oh, not much.  Only 2 or 3 inches at most.  But still.  Winter -- that bitch -- she's back.

I hear talk, occasionally, when I choose to listen, that there have been predictions of another winter as harsh and cold as the last one.  Personally, I think it's a load of bullshit, and mean-spirited fear mongering.  But still...what if it's true? 

I'm not being the least bit poetic or melodramatic when I say, I don't think I can handle another winter like last winter.  Empty wells, frozen pipes, daily shovelling, minus 29.9 degrees.  That's the record low on our thermometer. I don't care to ever see that one broken. I'll throw the fucker in the lake before I see it dip another tenth of a degree lower. Well -- first I'll hack through a foot of ice, then I'll throw that little fucker in the lake!  So help me God I will!

If I sound a little cheerless and bleak lately, it's because I am.  Things are not going well at school.  My hair is suddenly choker-block full of grey hair.  When did that happen?  It's been two months since I last went out running.  All work and no play, and I'm still not as smart as I think I should be?  Oh, and I'm cold.  All the time cold.  And now there's snow.

Ah well, at least the pepperkake went on sale last weekend.  I've said it before, and I'll say it again, pepperkake is absolutely the best and brightest part of Norwegian Christmas.  Still waiting on the juleøl though.  I'm sure everything will be better when the juleøl (Christmas beer) hits the shelves.

Week 41

Ever since my kids hit school age, I've carped and moaned about høst ferie in early October and vinter ferie in late February.  They're a week long school break (every year the same week--week 41 for høstferie, week 9 for vinter ferie*) and every year I've grumbled, "A week?  A whole week?  Didn't they just start school?  Do they really need a whole week right now?  A long weekend sure, maybe.  But a whole week?  How absurd!  How wasteful!  How perfectly inconvenient!"

Then I went back to school last winter.  And it all began to make sense to me.

To say I was ready for this week long break is a bit of an understatement.  To say my brain was fried, and I was in need of a week long break from studying is still a bit of an understatement.  To say my brain was first battered, then fried, then shredded and finely minced for good measure, and that I was in need of flash freezing and a week long rest in cold storage is coming much closer the truth (albeit metaphorical) of the matter.

It's not just the classes.  I'm taking physics and chemistry, and I find both subjects challenging to say the least.  And, of course, it's all taught in Norwegian, so I have the additional hurdle of having to make my own understanding of all this new and intellectually demanding material make sense in a language that is not my own.  My fresh-faced, eager young classmates don't have to do that, and I find I resent it.

Also absent in my fellow students' lives--children.  Three children who must be fed, chauffeured, occasionally chastized, often nagged, tutored and read to, not to mention just plain listened to every once in a while, and at the end of the day made to feel nurtured and loved and wanted.  Here too, I find I resent that I'm presumably the only one in my classes struggling to balance both studying and parenting.  And in resenting my childless classmates, how can I help but start to resent the presence of my own children?

It hurts my heart to say, to even think, such a thing.  But there it is.  I resent my husband too.  I resent his job for taking him away from home so much, and throwing such a disproportionate amount of the parenting responsibilities on my shoulders.  I resent his success because it only means that I can't really complain.  He's extremely good at what he does, and to ask him to step back, to help me (cuz' he'd do it, see, he loves us, and he'd do pretty much whatever I asked him to do) would be to essentially ask him to quit.  He's always on the verge of something fantastic, something truly, career-makingly spectacular.  One of these days, one of these glorious projects is going to round third base, and slide on into home.  And that would be it for him.  He'd be set for life. I cannot, I will not ask him to step back now.  Afterall, it's not his fault that I was lazy, and I foundered for so long trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, and then summon up the gumption to actually go back to school and do it. 

He's been rather wonderful though, ever since I did ultimately decide. Encouraging me.  Supporting me.  Cheering me on.  But even this unequivocal enthusiasm I resent a bit.  He expects great things of me.  Perhaps even a greatness, eventually, equal to his own.  He says simply, that I'm clearly capable of it.  But with that expectation comes a huge amount of pressure.  I'm not allowed to simply float.  I suppose that even without him there egging me on, I'd put the pressure on myself to get far more than merely adequate grades. That's just the kind of girl I am. But feeling him there behind me, expecting it of me...

The resentment, it just grows and multiplies.

It's this, really, that has been fucking so thoroughly with my brain, and from which I needed the week long break.  I've got to find some way to put it all in perspective, or it's going to break me in two, and I'm going to have to quit.  I don't want to quit because I like it.  I like having a direction and purpose to my days.  I like the challenge of learning new and difficult things.  I love the heady buzz of getting a good grade on a difficult test.  But I keep catching myself thinking, "Why can't my kids just go away?" and "Why is my husband so useless?"

It's wrong.  It's unfair.  And I can't do it anymore.  My kids are delightful, my husband is far from useless, and I deserve to enjoy them.

Later.

For now, I'm on my own.  Mister has taken the kids to his mother's.  He's gone hunting.  And I've got a box of rosé and season 6 of Lost to rediscover.  I can honestly say, I resent none of these things.  I am at peace.


*These are the weeks that apply to Bergen.  Other cities have their høst and vinter feries in either the week before or the week prior to ours.  They stagger it this way, apparently, so the entire population doesn't migrate en masse to the hyttes (cabins) and various resort destinations, thus causing a catastrophic shift in land mass distribution, and, theoretically at least, causing the earth to move off its axis.  This is the shit I get to think about now that I know all about Newton's laws of motion....